It was a rainy, dreary day in Nermia. That morning the clouds had opened overhead, and poured down water in cold sheets. Those hearty souls venturing out to the market under the cover on umbrellas were treated to an unusual sight.
A petite, yet well endowed, young redheaded girl made her way through the sparse crowds. By herself, she wasn't that unusual. Red hair in an obviously Japanese person deserved some comment, but perhaps she had an American father or something. The grace with which she flowed between the people and obstacles on the street was notable, but there were many obscure martial arts masters in the area equally graceful, or nearly so at any rate. The large traveling pack on her back was oversized for her petite frame, but some small strength could again be explained as a result of training.
No, what was unusual was twofold. First, the obvious: the unconscious 200 kilo giant panda she as carrying, slung impossibly over her shoulder and pack. Never mind that the panda was easily twice the weight of a normal panda. Never mind that the panda would be over 2 meters tall if it stood on its hind legs. What was impossible was that it was being carried by a slip of a girl who would be barely 50 kilos when soaking wet. Well, she was soaking wet, but still, no one should have been able to carry something that bulky, much less carry it as easily and casually as this girl was doing.
The second unusual thing, things actually, were the girls eyes. Few people actually saw them, buried as they were underneath pack and panda, and further hidden by bushy bangs, drooping in the rain. However, those few who did meet her eyes universally recoiled, dropped their gaze and hurriedly moved out of the girl's path. Something in her eyes was terribly terribly frightening. Perhaps not for what was there, but for what was missing. If anyone had been near the American army bases during the so called Vietnam war, they might have seen this same gaze on the visage of a man just returned from years of jungle warfare. It was the gaze of a person burned nearly soulless from death seen and death dealt, someone who cared little anymore for human life.
Eventually the girl made her way to her destination. Not bothering to opening the gates of the Tendo compound, the girl bounced lightly over the top of the wall, panda and all, and alit with a light tip tap on the far side.
Inside the house, the patriarch of the family, Tendo Soun, had just called a meeting with two of his three daughters. Nabiki, his middle daughter, had evidently fainted upon waking late that morning, and was still sleeping. His eldest daughter Kasumi had, however, assured him that Nabiki would be alright after settling the girl back into her bed.
Nevertheless, the news he bore was too important to wait. Nabiki would have to learn of it later when she awoke.
Akane, his youngest daughter, had just screamed "An arranged marriage! You can't do that to us!" when he heard the door open.
"It must be Saotome!" Soun exclaimed, rising from his cushion at the table. "Saotome my friend!" he yelled in excitement and ran down the hall, followed at a more sedate pace by his daughters. "You're here!"
"Taidama!" called a young female voice from in the entryway. "Do you have any hot water, father?"
Rounding the corner, the Tendo family patriarch was treated to the unusual sight described above. The panda carrying young girl was kicking off slightly oversized slippers in a very familiar fashion, as if she expected a specific spot for her things. "I guess let me carry pops upstairs first, okay? Hey! You look a lot better then when I left."
Gathering his wits (an amazing feat in itself) and his dignity, Soun put on a stern visage and demanded "And who might you be, young lady?"
"What, don't you recognize your own son-in-law? You're the one who forced this marriage," quipped Ranma.
On her shoulder, the quiescent giant panda stirred, and held up a sign which had the scribbled on it, "Ouch. What hit me?"
Unfortunately for the panda no one noted his sign, because just then Kasumi, followed a moment later by Akane, rounded the corner as well.
At the sight of Kasumi, the young girl promptly dropped the panda in shock, fortunately on his head, knocking him silly again. "Kasumi! What happened? You're walking again! This is great!"
This puzzling outburst was followed a moment later by the girls high pitched shriek on seeing Akane, "You're Alive!"
Promptly Akane found herself caught up in an unbreakably tight squeeze, her face buried in a shock of red hair. This despite the fact that a still puzzled Soun was standing in a narrow doorway directly between her and where the girl wearing the huge backpack had been standing moments before. "You're alive! You're alive! Oh thank the kami! You're alive!" sang the young girl over and over as a helpless Akane was whirled dizzyingly around and around the hall and living room, slowly turning blue in the face.
Eventually, the scene was broken up by a dry voice coming from the stairwell. "Ranma, you're going to kill her again if you don't let go," stated a kimono clad Nabiki in her driest voice.
"Eep!" gaped Ranma, dropping Akane and springing away. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Are you alright? I'm sorry. I'm ... uh, Nabiki?" Suddenly, a worried Ranma realized who had just spoken. "This isn't what it looks like!"
"Whatever. Come on Ranma. We have to talk." Nabiki seized a paralyzed Ranma's arm, and dragged him, er her, toward the dojo.
Back in the house, Soun blinked. "What just happened?"
Drifting down a quiet residential street, a lilting voice was heard speaking the liquid, singing tones of Mandarin. Despite the musical tones of the language, the speaker sounded distinctly peeved. Any who understood the language would have heard this: "Great Grandmother, I still don't understand what we are doing. If you know where the outsider woman will be, why can't we just go there? And who are we going to see now? And why do you have to be here, anyway? Don't you trust me to be able to hunt her down myself?"
Walking down the street, the speaker could be seen to be a curvaceous young Chinese woman with unusual long purple hair. Beside her, a person so unusual as to appear almost non-human employed an equally unusual form of locomotion. Appearing like nothing so much as a foot high miniature troll with long white hair longer than itself, the person bounced easily along pogo like balanced atop a three foot high wooden staff.
Cologne shook her head and forebore another attempt to explain to Shampoo. Even the bits of the story she understanded enough to relate were complicated, and by now Shampoo had been so indoctrinated in the belief of Amazon superiority that much of what she said the younger woman simply dismissed out of hand. It was perhaps this same belief which led in part to the disaster before. Cologne could now see that the training she gave Shampoo in these areas would have to be drastically adjusted. Well, there would be plenty of opportunity to start humbling her heir on this trip.
Cologne waved her heir into silence as they walked, and considered her options for the umpteenth time. The was she saw it, she had three choices to try to avert the upcoming disaster.
First, she could try to kill Ranma and Nabiki outright. Unfortunately, anything short of several of the elders working together would be insufficient to kill Ranma, and as long as he protected Nabiki the same applied to her. Getting that fracticious lot to agree on anything was hard, much less something as seemingly trivial as rousing themselves for a mere male on only her say so. Besides, Cologne still had some fondness for the embittered youths, and she has to admit, if only to herself, that a good part of the blame for their attitudes rested with her.
Second, she could simply bring Shampoo to heel and return to the village, hoping that if unprovoked Ranma and Nabiki would leave them alone this time. This, too, was unacceptable. Cologne needed some measure of certainty of survival, not some vague hope. Further, this still left her great granddaughter with a legal obligation to fulfill, one with terrible consequences should she fail to do so.
Third, she could try to reconcile with Ranma and Nabiki and defuse the situation. This would be, at best, hard. The youths were more likely to try to kill her on sight than listen to her; they had precious little reason to trust her. The would likely react especially badly if she and Shampoo showed up immediately on the heels of Ranma's arrival at the Tendos, tomorrow, as she hoped to do. Fortunately she had one small advantage, knowing where and when things would happen and being able to charter a flight to Japan had allowed her and Shampoo to move far faster than Shampoo had been able to track Ranma the first time.
As she saw it, the third option was the only realistic hope. Once she was able to approach them, she hoped that the offerings she brought would both reconcile them to her and provide a solution to Shampoo's legal dilemma. However, she would need help to be able to approach the young Saotome couple peacefully. That's why they were here.
Reaching the correct address, Cologne approached the doorway of a small but respectable house, followed by Shampoo. Cologne jumped down from her perch to free her staff for another task: reaching up to knock on the door.
The door opened shortly, revealing an attractive middle aged woman with auburn hair clad in a kimono. To the woman's credit, she did not react to the unusual appearance of her two visitors, but instead merely asked politely, "May I help you ?"
Cologne gives her most pleasant smile (still a very frightening sight), and responded in flawless Japanese. "Saotome Nodoka? I am elder Cologne, Matriarch of the Joketsuzoku village of Chinese Amazons, and this is my heir and great granddaughter Shampoo. Please forgive us for intruding on you, but we have news of your child, Ranma. Further, we would like to request your aid in concluding a matter of honor between your child and my heir."
Any reservations of Nodoka's were swept aside by these words. "Ranma? You know Ranma? Of course, by all means come in!" Leading her guests into her small and sparse, yet clean, living room, Nodoka saw her quests seated. "May I offer you some tea?"
"I would be grateful, Saotome-dono."
In the kitchen, Nodoka nearly bubbled over with excitement while the water heated. They knew her son! Perhaps she would soon be reunited with Ranma! That girl was quite attractive, and the older lady had introduced herself as an older relative concerned about a matter of honor. She could imagine what must have happened. Her son must be very manly indeed! Of course, her son could not be allowed to marry a gaijin, but perhaps the girl would be willing to be a mistress.
With effort, Nodoka calmed herself as she placed the tea set, kettle and some snacks on a tray. Walking out into the sitting room, she saw her guests properly served, and demurely settled on a cushion across the low table from them.
Finally unable to container herself any longer, Nodoka blurted out, "Please forgive my rudeness, elder, but what can you tell me about my son?"
Cologne smiled. She might indeed be able to recruit this woman to her aid. "Recently, your son come to my village in search of help for a recent, unfortunate occurrence. While there, he participated in our annual martial arts tournament, beating our champion, my great granddaughter. Unfortunately, this circumstance created its own set of problems. It is my hope we can resolve them with your aid."
"Nevertheless, I can tell you that your child holds honor dearly and had a good heart, even though he is brash, insensitive and prone to act without thinking. Despite this, he has grown to be one of the, if not the, premier martial artist of his generation."
Nokoda sighed and released some of the tension she was holding. Perhaps her brash decision to allow Genma to take Ranma had turned out alright after all. "You spoke of a problem to resolve, Elder."
"Forgive me Saotome-dono, if I speak frankly. There are two problems, inextricably intertwined. You see, perhaps unfortunately, we have laws of great antiquity which were designed to keep our village fighters as the strongest in the world. If a outsider male defeats one of our warriors, she must marry him, if an outsider female defeats one of us, she must be killed. Because of your child's defeat of my great-granddaughter and his second problem, both situations apply."
"Excuse me, but how can both situations apply to my son?"
There was a brief pause while Cologne examined the Saotome matriarch. Meanwhile, Shampoo frantically flipped through a Japanese to Chinese dictionary, trying in vain to catch up to the conversation. She wondered why Cologne kept referring to a son? Did she have the words for son and daughter confused?
"Saotome-dono, this may be hard for you to accept, but do you believe in magic?" Cologne slowly pulled a small opaque plastic jar with a wide screw on lid out of her robes, which she opened and sets on the table with obvious care. Somehow, the faint drone of background noise always present in a large city faded away. A cloud choose that moment to drift across the sun, drawing the room into uneasy darkness. Yet, somehow enough light remained to leave the ordinary appearing jar illuminated, almost glowing. The sole spot of light made it stand out against the suddenly drab appearance of the room. Drawn by the unsettling conviction in Cologne's voice, Nodoka's gaze slowly fixed on the jar as if hypnotized.
Without waiting for an answer, Cologne continued, "We live near a cursed training ground called Jusenkyo, at which your husband had inadvisably brought your son to train. It is a group of over 100 different cursed springs, which have a rather unsettling effect should you happen to fall into one. This water was from the spring of drown cat." Colognes hand, now held above the open jar of water, opened to reveal a small cricket. The cricket had time for a single, forlorn sounding cheep before it was dropped.
Nodoka's eyes tracked the cricket as it falls from Colognes hand, seemingly in slow motion. It raised but a tiny splash as it disappeared beneath the water, the jar was just large enough to hold it. For a second, nothing happened, and Nodoka began to slowly expel a breath she didn't know she was holding.
Quite suddenly, the jar was burst asunder from something far too large to be contained inside it. Nodoka and Shampoo both shrieked and jumped backward. Revealed on the table where the jar was sat a small, wet, sable furred cat.
Cologne reached out and took the cat into her arms. "The transformation is temporarily reversible with hot water," a splash of tea left Cologne holding a cricket again. Cologne smiled fondly at the cheeping insect in her hand. "Until the cursed individual is next exposed to cold water." A brief application of cold ki and another splash left her holding a purring cat.
"Great-grandmother! What you do?" Shampoo exclaimed from the corner in broken Japanese. Cologne again waved her into silence.
"This, this happened to my son?" Nodoka whispered in a small, terrified voice from near the wall. Hesitantly she approached the table again, and tentatively touched the purring kitten. "My son turns into a, a cat? Is there a cure?"
"No, Saotome-dono, not a cat. May the kami preserve us all if he should turn into a cat," Cologne responded cryptically. "There are over 100 springs there, after all, each different. There is a cure, and I journeyed here in part to offer one to him. I hope that doing so would go some way toward making amends. Unfortunately, we require your help to approach your son. Due to the problems I mentioned, your son is unlikely to trust us. In fact, he is more likely to try to kill us on sight, and I fear he is capable of doing so."
To shocked to ask any more questions at the moment, Nodoka could only stare at the cat and nod. Abstractly, she wondered to herself 'amends for what?'
"Isn't it great, Nabiki! Kasumi's alright! And Akane! Akane's alive! Akane's alive!" Ranma had recovered much of her exuberance, and was literally bouncing off the dojo walls and ceiling, still clad in her camouflage fatigues. "That means Mom's alright! And Ucchan, too! Akane's alive! Akane's alive! Oh, man I can't wait to talk to that tomboy again!"
A kimono clad Nabiki interrupted when she was finally able to catch up to Ranma, and dumped the kettle she held over the redhead. "You are forgetting about a few complications, Husband," Nabiki warned as Ranma suddenly grew into his male frame, causing Ranma to loosen and readjust several Velcro closures on her, now his, fatigues.
"Huh? Oh, um, yeah, I guess." Ranma suddenly looked a little downcast.
'Now why did I remind him of that? It's not like I care for him, even if the sex was good,' Nabiki pondered. Well, time to divert Ranma onto something else. Nervously rubbing the ring on her hand, she continued, "Let's not forget that those Amazon bitches are also out there again. Your mother is still going to want to enforce the seppeku pact, Ukyo and Ryoga are going to be hunting you down. Who knows what our fathers will do this time? And Happosai is still out there somewhere."
Ranma's eyes flashed at the mention of the Amazons, but then grew steadily more and more depressed as Nabiki expounded on her litany of problems. Turning to his first, easiest, and to his mind most pressing concern, Ranma asked "So, what're we going to do about the Amazons this time? We can't attack using the same trick you did before." Ranma's voice hardened as he continued, "At least I can kill Shampoo the first time she shows up."
Nabiki snorted internally. Typical of Ranma. Instead of dealing with the emotional issues, turn to a fight. Well, since it was the Amazons he was talking about, she was okay with that. How could they attack the Amazons this time around? Perhaps some of the other high powered martial artists around could be found and coerced into an alliance, or ... Nabiki's train of thought ground to a halt as she was struck by an unsettling realization, "Does the clan feud with the Amazons apply back in this time?" she wondered aloud, suddenly distraught.
Ranma looked at Nabiki, stunned, his face frozen in a comical 'O' of surprise. Finally unfreezing, he turned away and muttered. "This time travel crap maybe isn't all it's made out as, is it?"
For the moment, Ranma and Nabiki settled back into the comfortable habits of thought from the last several months. Something occured to Ranma. "Heh, maybe I should kill Ryoga, too. The pig. I'll take his 'Ranma, prepare to die' crap and shove it up his ass. And man, I look forward to meeting that asshole Kuno again, a shattered hand or shoulder or leg bone would look good on him. Keep him from ever picking up that damn sword again, too."
"Whatever, just make certain they attack you first so I can get you out of trouble," Nabiki responds. "And just for fun, I think I'd like to handle the Kuno bitch myself."
Recalling their present dilemma, Ranma glanced back at where Nabiki was nervously rubbing her wedding ring, a habit she had picked up 'to remind her of why we're doing this,' she had once told him. Quietly, he fingered his own ring, braided into his hair where it wouldn't get lost whenever he changed sexes and finger sizes. 'What the hell do we do now?' he wondered to himself. 'I mean, Akane's alive! And I kinda lo ... lo ... love her. But Nabiki and I ...'
Atypically, Ranma gathered his courage and faced a non fight related issue head on. "So, since this is the past, are we married, or not?"
"I, I don't know," Nabiki haltingly admited. "Damn Amazons and their damn magic."
Silence reigned in the dojo for a few minutes. The tension was finally broken by a knock on the door. "Ranma! Nabiki! Someone is here to see you!"
Ranma and Nabiki exchanged puzzled glances.
Earlier, inside the house, a gasping Akane had finally picked herself up off the floor with Kasumi's help. Kasumi turned to Soun as she assisted Akane onto the couch and asked "Who was that, father? Nabiki called her Ranma, but you said that Ranma was a boy?"
Despite her rough handling, Akane couldn't but help but be relieved. She could tell that this girl Ranma hadn't been trying to hurt her or anything. And importantly, if Ranma was a girl, there couldn't be a marriage! Besides, Ranma had seemed incredibly glad to see her for some reason. Maybe they could be friends. Ranma had to be incredibly good at the Art to put on the display she did. Maybe she could learn from her, or at least have a sparring partner!
Soun was still standing in the hallway, gaping like one of the koi in his pond. Who was that girl? Hadn't Genma said that he had a son? And where was Genma, anyway?
Soun's internal dilemma was broken by a large paw tapping him on the shoulder. Woodenly turning around, he beheld the huge panda the girl had impossibly carried into his home standing on its hind legs.
"AAUUUGGH!" screamed Soun, and ran. "It's a wild panda!" Mercifully, his screams were cut short as he ran into the opposite wall of the living room at speed, stunning himself.
"I'll handle it!" A recovered Akane jumped up and seized the low table in the living room, preparatory to bashing the panda on the head.
Quickly, the panda forestalled the attack by holding up a sign in its paw. "Hello Soun, old friend!" the sign read. The sign flipped over to the other side, which read "I can explain everything." Another flip impossibly showed a third sign, reading, "Can I have some hot water please?"
"Why, what a wonderfully trained panda!" Kasumi exclaimed happily. "Certainly you can have some hot water, Panda-san!"
The panda growfed happily, and peacefully followed Kasumi into the kitchen on it's hind legs. Somehow it made the sign it was carrying disappear.
Akane blinks, and dropped the table back into it's spot. Unfortunately, a prone and stunned Soun happened to be occupying the spot at the time. Fortunately, he was already stunned, so the table only insured that his unconsciousness would be extended a short while.
A few moments later a splash was heard from the kitchen, followed by a very expressive "Oh my!"
"So that's the way of it." Soun knelt across the table from his old friend, once again human. Tears were streaming from both their faces. "A martial artist's path is fraught with peril. Now, the true horror of Jusenkyo is revealed."
"So that girl was really your son, Saotome-san?" Kasumi asks as she politely set down the tray of sake her father had requested. "She seemed very familiar with us."
"Well, all the better to promote the union between our houses, eh, old friend? I knew the boy would come through once his responsibilities were explained!" Genma exclaimed triumphantly.
Akane was simply fuming. That girl really was a boy! It seemed so strange, but she had seen her father's so called friend change back and forth from panda to human. And her father and this stranger were insisting on the marriage! The boy was certain to pick her. She, uh, he, had hugged her immediately when he saw her, not even waiting for an introduction. He was worse than Kuno! She wasn't going to marry some sex changing pervert!
A knock on the door interrupted the scene. Taking the opportunity to get out of the room Akane called "I'll get it", and went to answer the door. Opening the door, she saw an attractive middle aged woman with a startlingly similar appearance to the girl Ranma, a buxom Chinese teenager her own age with weird purple hair, and, "A Troll! Agghh!"
Cologne sighed and hopped forward, rapping Akane sharply on the head. "Mind your manners, girl. You'd be glad to look half so good when you've seen as many generations as I have."
"Excuse me," Nodoka interrupted with a slight frown for Akane's and Cologne's behavior, "but is there a Saotome Genma or Saotome Ranma here? I'm Saotome Nodoka, Ranma's mother, and this is Elder Cologne, matriarch of the Chinese Amazons and her great-granddaughter and heir Shampoo. Cologne would like to see both Ranma and your sister Nabiki, and I would dearly love to see my son."
"Why, what a lot of visitors we're getting today!" Kasumi smiled from where she had appeared beside Akane. "I'll go get Ranma and Nabiki. Akane, will you please show Saotome-dono and our other guests to the living room?"
"Right, right," a peeved and sore headed Akane muttered. Great, could her day get any worse?
Back in the living room, Genma had suddenly gone pale upon hearing the conversation down the hallway. "Soun, my friend, Nodoka mustn't find us, it would mean our lives!" he whispered. With that, he splashed himself with a handy glass of water, seized another bucket full of water conveniently placed for dramatic use by Jusenkyo cursed characters, and dashed for the dojo.
Genma reached the dojo just as Kasumi had knocked on the door and called "Ranma! Nabiki! Someone is here to see you!" Gently moving Kasumi out of the way, Genma flung open the door and threw the bucket of water on top of Ranma, who was approaching the door with Nabiki.
"What'd you do that for, Oyaji?" a suddenly female Ranma growled, her eyes growing dark. Faster than Genma had ever seen her move before, she seized the panda by the throat and impossibly lifted it into the air. "You didn't have to get Nabiki wet too. Don't you have any concern for others?" Ranma punctuated these statements by shaking Genma-panda like a rag doll.
"Stop wasting time, Ranma. Just knock the old idiot out or something. I'd like to see who's here asking for us." Nabiki chimed in coldly as she ineffectually tried to wring water out of her kimono. "I'll come up with something special for him later."
Nabiki then turned to her sister, ignoring Ranma as she dealt out an unsettling amount of animal abuse behind her. To Kasumi's amazement, Nabiki's face underwent a startling transformation, blossoming into a warm smile. "Who is it, Kasumi? And, if I haven't said it yet today, I'm glad to see you, too."
Kasumi couldn't help but smile back at her sometimes cold sister, despite the disturbing thumps, yelps, and moans from inside the dojo. Every once in a while, a glimpse of a sign could be seen through the door, saying things like "It's for your own good, boy!" or "Seppuku pact!" or "Waahh! I don't want to die!" or just plain "Ouch!"
"It's Ranma's mother, and some Amazon visitors from China."
A cry of "Amazons!" bursts in stereo from Ranma and Nabiki. Ranma suddenly appeared in the door, matching Nabiki's suddenly hard, hate filled expression. The sudden reaction made Kasumi gasp and step back.
"Shit! Akane and Mom are in there with them! I won't let them die again!" Ranma covered the distance between the dojo and the house in a single leap, straight over Kasumi's head.
"Goddamnit! " Somehow, Nabiki had produced an assault rifle (!) from somewhere in her kimono, and despite the garment's restrictions, was nearly keeping up with the petite redhead.
Dazedly, Kasumi wondered at Nabiki's weapon. Weren't those illegal?
Ranma and Nabiki hit the wall on either side of the door, Ranma gathering some strange glowing energy in his off hand, and Nabiki leveling her rifle at the doorway. On some unseen signal, Ranma flung back the door and leapt for the interior, but an unexpected obsticle stopped her in mid leap. Ranma caught herself on the door frame and fell unceremoniously on the porch floor in front of her mother, who was standing just on the other side of the door, hand still reaching the for the handle.
"Gah!" was all the redhead could say.
"Ranma! So it's true! Are you alright? I'm so glad to see you!" Nodoka exclaimed, and rapidly stepped forward and knelt beside her child, gathering her in a hug.
"Gah!" Ranma said again, subjected to an unexpected glomp.
Fortunately, Nabiki was still able to speak, and swung her rifle to cover the inside of the room. "Auntie! Imoto-chan! Quickly! Get away from them!"
"Wait!" Nodoka spoke from underneath Nabiki, while pushing her weapon out of line. "Please don't attack Elder Cologne or Shampoo. They requested that I intercede for them. They have given their word they will not attack. Please hear them out."
Ranma used the opportunity to wiggle free of Nodoka and slipped past Nabiki and her mother into the room, carefully staying out of Nabiki's line of fire. Indeed, she could see that Akane was okay, although obviously flustered, confused and rapidly approaching anger. Soun was still seated at the table, where he had been when Cologne and Shampoo had been announced. He had stopped weeping, however his eyes were wide and sweat poured off his temples.
Placing herself between Akane and the table at which Cologne and Shampoo were seated, Ranma glanced back and forth between her mother and the peacefully seated Amazons. Finally Ranma broke the silence, "Mom, are you certain?"
Shampoo choose this moment to exercise her broken Japanese. "It true. Shampoo not want to leave cowardly outsider girl alone, but great grandmother not let carry out kiss of death for now. Does stupid girl not trust Amazon elder?" she huffed.
Ranma and Nabiki both favored the young Amazon with an angry and distrustful gaze. They shared a more expressive glance between themselves before relaxing minutely.
Freed from the concern of immediate combat, Nabiki, always a little quicker on the uptake, realized something. "Wait," she said, lowering the aim of the blatantly illegal firearm, "Auntie, you already knew about Ranma?"
"Of course she did child," Cologne rasped from her seat. "How did you expect that I talked her into this?" This meeting had gone about as well as she had expected, but she had to move quickly to capitalize on this opportunity. "I do have something to say to you which you'll want to hear."
"Yeah, whatever old ghoul. Be quick about it." Ranma growled.
"First, this is for you." Cologne produced a several gallon wooden cask from somewhere, and placed it on top of the low table. The cask was marked with the characters Spring of Drowned Man. "Second," Cologne scooted back from the table, and abased herself, "please accept my abject apologies for the actions of myself and my heir which led to the current situation. I truly regret causing your families the pain and suffering I did."
Ranma and Nabiki could only gape, nonplussed, at the diminutive elder. This was not at all what they had expected. Shampoo, too, sat shocked at the behavior of her great-grandmother. This was not how a proud Amazon warrior was to act, was it?
After a short while, Cologne pulled herself up with a small sigh. It was too much to expect that the embittered youths would react graciously to such a sudden change. It would be enough for the moment if they simply did not attack, more would come in time.
"Third, I expect that the rest of you would like to hear a full explanation of what is going on, and Ranma and Nabiki would like to hear my idea for untangling the legal impasse which caused such pain to them before."
Cautiously, the Saotome's and Tendo's gather in the room and seated themselves, minus Ranma and Nabiki, who stood distrustfully near the entrys to the room, and a battered panda outside the house, currently whimpering as it clumsily tried to wrap bandages about itself.
Seated around the low table in the living room, the Tendos, minus Nabiki, and Saotome Nodoka prepared to hear their Chinese guest's story. Nabiki and onna-Ranma hovered suspiciously near the outside exits to the room.
"Are you really a boy?" Akane broke the silence with what was, to her, the most important issue. Looking back over her shoulder, she could see the very feminine, petite redheaded girl standing near the hallway. Even with the demonstration of the elder Saotome's curse, she hoped that there was not going to be a forced marriage.
Suddenly given reason to give her attention to Akane, Ranma's face underwent a transformation just like Nabiki's had when speaking with Kasumi. The angry, suspicious glare she had been favoring the Amazon visitors with melted into a warm, sunny smile directed toward the black haired girl. Cold agate blue eyes suddenly warmed from icy winter to a sunny spring day. Akane nearly gasped at the warmth of the expression. Did someone feel that way about her?
Realizing what Akane had asked, Ranma glanced away and scratched the base of her pigtail nervously. A slight blush favored her cheeks along with her nearly shy statement, "Eh, um, yeah, I am. Sorry about this."
Akane shook herself away with the inadvertently voiced realization, "Oh no! Now daddy is going to insist on this marriage!"
"Would it be so bad?" Ranma glanced back at Akane.
Forgetting that the marriage had not yet been finalized, Akane burst out "But you're part girl! I can't marry a girl!" Her eyes narrowed. "Any you felt me up, too! You pervert!"
The rest of the family and guests watched this interchange with interest. Nabiki eyes were hooded and her face drawn, even as her gaze never left the Amazons from where she stood near the porch door. 'What's Ranma doing! I'm the one married to him! Or, or am I? Do I want to be?'
Nodoka looked on with pride and happiness, and some worry. 'Oh! Even as a girl, my son is manly! I wonder what happened between him and elder Cologne, though? The elder never really explained, and Ranma seems so angry. And the other daughter, Nabiki. She seems equally angry, and, almost ... jealous? Oh! My son is so manly!'
Kasumi looked on with interest. 'I wonder what happened to little sister? She seemed so happy to see me. I've not seen her that happy for years. Now, though, she seems so hard. Wherever did she get a machine gun? She could get in real trouble with that! And who is this Ranma? I'd best learn more about her, or him, if one of us will have to marry him.'
Soun grasped like a drowning intellect for one of the few lifesaving tidbits of these events he felt capable of comprehending. 'Ranma seems to be very fond of Akane, but he and Nabiki had worked so well together. The future of the schools is assured!'
Shampoo's thoughts were a jumble. 'I'm certain I heard correctly that time. That cowardly outsider girl claimed to be a boy! If this is true ... Well, the panda was really an older man. Does this mean I have a husband now? Is this why great-grandmother came with me?'
Outside, a panda was just beginning to grasp essential facts. 'Nodoka knows about the boy's curse, and she's not going to make us seppeku? This means the families can be joined!' Shortly, it waddled off in search of hot water.
Ranma blushed again at Akane's accusation, and responded remarkably calmly. "Yeah, well, I'm sorry about that. It's just that I was really glad to see you again. You see, you were dead, or well, uh," Ranma flushed even more in the face of Akane's obvious disbelief. Even she realized how ridiculous she sounded.
Cologne chose this moment to interrupt. "What Ranma means is that he, Nabiki, and I are from a future nearly two years from now. A rather grim future, I fear."
The rest of the room turned it's attention to Cologne. She spoke calmly and neutrally, almost apologetically in parts, yet the words she said cast a chill pall over the room. "In this future, Akane, you and Ranma were affianced and, although neither of you liked to admit it, in love. Unfortunately, due to some circumstances which I am partly responsible for, our laws also stated that Ranma and Shampoo were married. So, when Akane and Ranma's wedding was to occur, Shampoo felt herself forced to kill her rival. Rivals, actually. Due to Genma's stupidity there were several engagements for Ranma. Since my duties as matriarch encompass that of the chief enforcer of our law, when Shampoo acted I was also forced to intervene."
"The end result of this was that you Akane-san, you, Saotome-dono, and Ranma's best childhood friend and sometime fiancee Kujoni Ukyo were all killed at the wedding by Shampoo. Shampoo herself was killed by Ranma. You Kasumi-san, were gravely injured by my hand. Because of this, Ranma and Nabiki swore vengeance on us, and had essentially succeeded in destroying or disbanding my people when I used a damaged artifact in a last ditch effort to come back to now and prevent this. Due to the damage to the artifact and other complicating factors, all three of us traveled here instead of just myself."
Akane, perhaps more than any other member of the audience, was struck by this recitation. This was unreal, she still wasn't entirely certain that Ranma was a boy, but 'I was in love, with her, uh, him? And she,' Akane glanced at Shampoo, 'killed me? I couldn't be in love with her, uh, him, could I? And no way could that bimbo be good enough to beat me!'
Cologne let her words settle amidst her shocked audience for a short time, and then turned to Nodoka. "Saotome-dono, please forgive me for being blunt, but I must request a favor."
Nodoka eyed the amazons with a new wariness, but eventually nodded. "It is in part your future self's dying wish that drove Ranma and Nabiki to their actions. I ask that you accept my personal apologies." Again, she abased herself, this time toward the Saotome matriarch.
Turning then toward Soun, Cologne similarly addressed the other responsible clan head, using the term responsible loosely, of course. "Tendo-san, in light of your future self's justifiable anger toward us, I must similarly beg forgiveness from you. If you would allow me to make amends, I have an offer for you and Happosai's other former student. Your former master is about to escape his prison in a few months. I can prevent this."
Nodoka graciously indicated that Cologne should resume her seat with a small smile. "Given everything you've done for us now, how could I do otherwise? I'm certain Tendo-san agrees with me."
Soun nodded, but shuddered, "Don't mention the master's name! Please!"
Ranma and Nabiki were stunned. Nabiki dropped her assault rifle with a clatter, and slid down the wall to plop on the floor. Ranma only gaped, stunned, at the sudden change. Their parents couldn't just accept this! Sure, they hadn't actually been through these events yet, but still, how could they forgive the Amazon bitches? Yet, there in front of them was the irrefutable evidence.
In a single stroke, Cologne had removed most of the justification for any further actions on their part. If they had had any purpose in their lives for the past year, a reason for living at all, this had been it. Now, in a moment, it was gone, pulled from underneath them like a rug. Laid atop all the other changes since their arrival, they suddenly felt lost, adrift, and alone.
Gathering her scattered wits, Nabiki tried to rally. With a half hearted sneer, she said "Why should we accept this? Because you offered a cure? How do we know it's not some kind of trap? Maybe it's something to get Ranma to go back to China with you, or something meant to kill us. And what about Shampoo? By your law doesn't she still have to try to kill Ranma?"
"I assure you that the cure is real," Cologne responded. "Although you must be careful to only use it when in your uncursed form, lest the curses mix instead of cancel."
Genma, who had just regained his human form in the kitchen, typically only heard what he wanted to hear in his greed. Springing from the door to the kitchen he cried "A cure!" and grabbed the cask of water from the low table. Before a kneeling Cologne or stunned Ranma could react, Genma had broken the top of the cask and dumped the contents over himself.
A dancing, exuberant, wet Genma exhibited a distinct lack of pandaness. He even went so far as to dump on himself whatever other water he could reach in the living room.
The room erupted into chaos.
Cologne struck a precise pressure point on the back of Genma's neck, paralyzing him, too late. Nodoka, Ranma, Cologne, and Nabiki were all screaming at Genma.
Cologne was suddenly terrified, and livid. That was her solution the idiot had just used! That cask had been her passport to end the feud, to seek Ranma and Nabiki's renouncement of vengeance, if not outright forgiveness, and most importantly her way out of the trap of law that had engulfed her before. With it, she could see redheaded outsider 'girl' 'killed', so to speak, thus satisfying the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. Given Ranma's dragon whisker curse of hair growth, she could have even taken the 'girls' scalp as 'proof'. Without that cask ...
Nodoka was bitterly disappointed in her husband, and angry. That was her son's cure! Without it, her son might be condemned to spend his life as a her! She might have to enforce the seppeku pact!
Ranma was seriously contemplating murdering her father. That idiot had been the ultimate source of most of her problems, and now his greed has just cost her the cure, again! The only thing really holding her back at the moment was that her mother was there, the moment she got the idiot away, though ... For the moment she was contenting herself with throwing the paralyzed idiot repeated into the wall.
Nabiki finally had a place to release her tension. That asshole! How the hell could he do this, now! Ranma would be crushed. She wouldn't blame Ranma one bit if she wanted to kill the bastard. It was even looking like Cologne had been sincere, and now the whole damn cycle might repeat itself.
Akane finally couldn't stand it anymore, and threw her tea onto Ranma. Her flinch as an apparently oblivious Ranma transformed into a black haired, handsome, male form went entirely unnoticed. It was true! No wonder Ranma was so angry! She really couldn't blame him. How could that idiot do such a thing! Besides, his male form was kind of cute. 'Cute? Where did that come from? He's a pervert and a jerk! Right?'
Shampoo jerked in shock at finally seeing Ranma's male form. It was true! The outsider girl really was a boy! Finally, she realized what she had to do. "Wo Ai Ni" she exclaimed, and threw herself at Ranma, intending to glomp her new husband.
"Shampoo, No! Don't!" Cologne screamed in Mandarin.
"Ranma! Son! Stop!" shrieked Nodoka.
Shampoo inexplicably found herself missing her target and somehow flipping through the air, impacting hard against the same wall recently used as a bouncing spot for Genma. Ranma had her pinned against the wall with one hand. She was too stunned to notice the strike Ranma had arrested just before it crushed her windpipe.
Everyone froze. Cologne had just rapped Genma smartly about the head with her staff. Nabiki was about to launch the idiot into the back yard with a kick. Nodoka was half risen from the table with the family sword. Akane, Soun, and Kasumi watched from the table with various expressions of disgust and amazement.
Finally, Ranma broke the tableau, and growled, "Don't touch me, bitch" in heavily accented, broken mandarin. Releasing his hold on Shampoo and dropping his strike he turned away. "I'm going upstairs" he continued in Japanese.
Behind him, Nabiki quietly retrieved her rifle from where she had dropped it, glared at Cologne and Shampoo, and followed Ranma.
Cologne, trembling, walked to the table and blindly grabbed one of the remaining cups of tea, downing it in a single gulp. "Shampoo you idiot! You may just have ruined everything!" Shampoo slid down the wall, collapsed to a seated position, and begin to cry.
Cologne took a deep breath. "Please forgive us, Saotome-dono," she said, almost pleading. "Perhaps we could return in a few weeks, after we've obtained more spring water? For now, I'm reconsidering my offer to those idiots to permanently contain Happosai."
Soun burst into tears, and Genma tried to whimper his pain through the paralysis.
Akane shuddered. She hadn't thought to blame him for beating up his father, she might have done the same after all, but Ranma had nearly killed that girl! What kind of person was he? Had she really been in love with a, a, murderer? He had seemed so nice for a bit.
Ranma groped his way slowly and heavily upstairs, feeling more than a little dazed after everything that had happened in the last day. Slipping open the door to his bedroom, or what would be his bedroom, or something, he leaned against the wall inside and desperately tried to think, not even remembering to close the door behind him.
As minds sometimes do when overloaded, his mind seized on an apparent triviality and worried it like a small dog hunched over a bone. Just when had he transformed back into a guy, anyway? The last he clearly remembered, he was a (shudder) she, and beating the shit out of his worthless pile of ex-panda crap of a father. Then the next thing he remembered he was holding that bitch Shampoo pinned against the wall, and his mother was yelling at him to stop. Was he male then? He thought so. Ranma groaned and held his head in his hands, trying to make sense of his situation.
Nabiki crested the top of the stairs a few moments later. She too, was trying without success to clamp down her wildly raging thoughts and emotions. Absently noting that she must have forgotten to shut her door earlier, she stepped inside and almost tripped over Ranma. In fact, she would have fallen had not Ranma's hand flashed out to steady her.
Nabiki caught her footing and her breath with a small gasp. Then, too deeply occupied with her own thoughts to notice what she was doing; she followed some instinct and took advantage of the steadying hand, absently leaning into Ranma. Eventually, she noticed something else. With some effort, she took up her customary ice queen persona and asked, "Saotome, what are you doing in my room?"
"Eh?" Ranma's eyes slowly focused and he looked around him. "Where's my stuff? This doesn't look like our room."
"It's not ours, Saotome. It's my room. This is before we were married, remember?" Nabiki said from her position still leaning on Ranma. Finally noticing what she was doing, she levered herself upright and pushed away, not without a bit of embarassment.
This did not help Ranma's turmoil at all. Forgetting about his transformation, he wondered what he was supposed to do now. What did Nabiki just mean? Were they married, or not? Did she want to be? Was she kicking him out? Why had she been leaning on him, then?
For the first time in months, Ranma didn't feel a clear dictate of honor guiding his path. Honor, along with his passion, had demanded vengance. Honor, despite any feelings or lack thereof, had demanded his marriage to Nabiki.
Where was honor now? What was the honorable path? Thanks to his mother and Tendo, vengance was no longer demanded. But what about his and Nabiki's marriage? Was that still valid? What would his mother say about this? Gathering his courage, Ranma rubbed the back of his neck and responded. "Uh, yeah, I forgot. So, Nabiki, umm, about our marriage, ..."
As had been the case a short time ago in the Dojo, neither Ranma nor Nabiki knew what to do and an awkward silence grew between the emotionally adrift youths. Fortunately for Ranma's inability to talk about emotional issues they were once again interrupted, this time by a knock on the doorframe.
Standing innocently just outside the door, Kasumi smiled at the two inside and stated, "Ranma, since your father indicated earlier you would be staying with us, I've prepared the guest room across the hall for you."
Turning to her younger sister, she continued with the same happy expression. "Imoto, you really shouldn't have something like that in the house. Would you like me to take care of it?" She asked, gesturing at the assault rifle Nabiki still held.
Despite herself, Nabiki smiled warmly back at her older sister, welcoming the timely distraction, as Kasumi almost certainly intended. Still, it made her a little nervous. How long had Kasumi been standing there? Had she overheard the comment about them being married? Was her comment about Ranma and the guestroom more than it seemed?
Taking advantage of the distraction, Nabiki turned her mind to her sister's question. Of course Kasumi couldn't 'take care of' an assault rifle, it was mostly just a topic for Kasumi to use as a pretext, although her sister also was reminding her to do something with it. Well, she really shouldn't have it here in Japan; she could get in a lot of trouble, after all. But, what could she do with it?
Unlike Nabiki, Ranma didn't see that Kasumi's distraction was more than coincidental. Still, as intended, he saw an opportunity to get out of the immediate situation. "Uh, I can get rid of that if you'd like, Nabiki." Barely waiting for Nabiki's nod, Ranma deftly maneuvered the weapon out of her hands in the midst of a mid-air leap for the open window.
Landing in the backyard, Ranma briefly reveled in the simple pleasure of showing off, something he'd not really indulged in for months. Doing so had just seemed so trivial the last little while. Shaking off his introspection, he dropped the magazine from the weapon and summoned a ball of hot ki in his free hand. He concentrated on the bright glowing ball of energy until it was too bright even for him to look at directly. Sparked by the intense heat, lightning like tendrils of glowing plasma crawled snakelike off it's surface and clung to his body, suddenly jumping at intervals and earthing themselves into the ground with loud crackles and pops. The back yard was thrown into a sharp contrast of bright light and sharp shadows by the searchlight intensity glow. Slowly, then, he fed the weapon; barrel first, into the intense ball of energy. Molten metal and bits of charred ash dripped from his hand and landed on the rock underneath as the weapon gradually disappeared a bit at a time.
Unfortunately, Ranma had forgotten one thing. As he reached the breech of the weapon there was a loud bang as the round left in the chamber cooked off from the intense heat. Ranma yelped, and abruptly dropped the remaining bits of the weapon into the expanding glow and tried to clutch his hand. Consequently, he lost control of the ball of ki, which suddenly exploded with a much larger bang.
Ranma's surprised yelp dopplered across the yard, following him as he was rudely, but predictably, flung into the koi pond by the small, unexpected explosion. Streamers of plasma, the remaining incandescent drops of molten metal and burning wooden splinters from the weapon briefly formed a rainbow trail behind him. Eventually, the sputtering, charred, smoking, and now female Ranma hauled herself upright in the water, clutching her hand where it had been burned by the plasma of the superheated bullet. "Iiitteee." She hissed between clenched teeth.
Attracted by a genuine laugh, Ranma looked up at the window. Nabiki smirked gently and, still laughing, closed the window, covering Kasumi's 'O' of shock and utter amazement.
From the porch, Akane unknowingly matched her eldest sister's expression of amazement. Attracted by the noises and intense play of light in the back yard, she had gone out to the porch. There she had been treated to the sight of Ranma casually doing something she would have sworn was impossible.
Akane was barely good enough to identify the intense ball of energy Ranma had been holding as ki, but no-one should be able to do that. How in the world could a person make his, um, her ki visible like that? And how in the world could anyone make something so intense that it melted steel? Had Ranma done that purely through Martial Arts? Who, or what, was she, uh, he?
Unconsciously, Akane felt safer around female Ranma than around male Ranma. As a boy, Ranma represented the threat of an unwanted marriage and the hormone crazed crowd of "admirers" she had to deal with at school. Not only that, but she had just seen Ranma the boy nearly kill that Chinese girl, and just now watched him perform a seemingly impossible and rather intimidating feat.
At heart, though, Akane had a kindly nature. Thus, where she would not yet have approached Ranma as a boy, she made an abrupt, unconscious, decision to try to be friends with the girl. She was not even aware at a conscious level of the dichotomy. Eventually, her feelings about Ranma's two halves would work themselves out without her being aware of it.
Stepping off the porch, Akane approached the redheaded girl trying to wring the water out her oversized and burned outfit and asked "Hey, uh, Ranma? Are you okay?"
As she had before, Ranma's face lit up when she saw who was talking to her. A genuinely happy smile blossomed across her face and her eyes seemed almost to transform into a warm, bright, sky blue. Registering what she had been asked, a slight flush of embarrassment colored her cheeks, and she averted her gaze and played with her ponytail. "Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about that."
"What'd you do? I mean, that felt like some of the ki manipulation techniques Dad has shown me, but I've never seen anyone do anything like that." Akane asked.
"Heh, neat look'n ain't it? It's just a variation on a technique one of the old Amazon ghoul's fellow bitches tried to use on me when we were fighting. It's actually supposed to use the lighting bolts ya saw, not the hot ball o' ki. It's not really that great for fighting, though, it takes too long to make." Ranma replied in a matter of fact voice.
Ranma looked at Akane again. "Um. I could try ta teach ya, if you'd like. It's not really that hard to do after you build up your power enough. You'd be amazed what you can do after you've blown up your first mountain. It may take a bit to build up to that level, o'course, but there's lots o' stuff you can learn on the way."
After having just seen what Ranma had just done, coupled with the completely matter of fact tone of voice she spoke in, it never even occurred to Akane to doubt Ranma's claims. "Blow up your first mountain?" she gasped. "How many mountains have you blown up?"
Ranma pouted cutely for a moment while she thought. "Um, two, I think. That one with Herb, and of course the one with Saffron."
"You, you can teach me how to do that? That'd be great! When do we start!" Suddenly, a bright-eyed Akane was bubbling over with enthusiasm. This was what the martial arts were about!
"Well, I'm not formally licensed ta teach, but the old letch, uh, that's the 'master' Happosai the old crone and your Dad mentioned inside, ain't here ta give me one anyway, and it's not like pops can stop me, so I guess we could start now if ya'd like." Replied Ranma, responding to Akane's enthusiasm with her own.
Unthinkingly, she took Akane's hand as she turned toward the dojo. "C'mon. Let's go in the dojo. We can start with some basics; some sparring, followed by some balance and some breathing, I think."
Akane eagerly followed Ranma, taking just a moment to parse the bad grammar and figure out what she was being told.
Inside, Ranma dropped Akane's hand and turned to face her. "Okay, to start with you just try to hit me, and I'll just dodge without blocking. It's a speed exercise. Slow but powerful attacks will miss, ya gotta be fast. Power comes after speed, okay? Meanwhile, I'll tap ya if I see any bad openings in your defenses. Also, I'll stop ya from time to time to make corrections. Okay?"
Akane listened intently to her new instructor, nodding in understanding to each point. Taking up a stance, she began by throwing a hard right jab, which Ranma flowed inside of.
After a few more techniques and seemingly effortless dodges, Akane felt a tap in her floating ribs under her punching hand. "Tighten that up, Akane. You're overextending." Later, other comments were heard, such as "Just relax, you're trying too hard. It makes you tense, and that slows you down and telegraphs your move." or "Stop there a minute, make certain you get a good weight transfer on that, but time it so that your hand reaches its target a millisecond before your weight shift finishes." or "Good! You're relaxing! Didja hear how that technique snapped?"
Eventually, a happily exhausted Akane and buoyant Ranma exited the dojo. Ranma was still chattering happily away about technique. "Ya see, you really do want your punch and weight shift to land at the same time, in order ta put your whole body behind it. The problem is, if ya train like that your foot always goes first, since that's what normally happens. So ya try on purpose to do the opposite, make the punch go first. Then it comes out right, see? It's like training your punch, right? You never punch from your waist in a fight, but the big motion trains the right kinda punch."
Akane eventually stopped Ranma by raising her hand with a tired smile. "I'm tired, Ranma, and I need a bath. Can we train again tomorrow?" Akane hesitated for just a moment, then gathered her courage and quietly asked, "Ranma, that story that Cologne told earlier. Was it true? Were we engaged? Did we, uh, did we like each other?"
"Heh, uh" Ranma hummed for a moment and clamped down on her first, instinctual insult. The impulse to push Akane away was still there. Instead, she scratched her pigtail in her classic pose of embarrassment. She couldn't lose this opportunity by her own stupidity or fear, like she had lost everything the first time. It might be the toughest fight she'd ever be in, but she was determined to get it right. Therefore, Ranma made a momentous decision. For the first time, no matter how hard, she was going to talk to Akane.
"Yeah, it's mostly true." Ranma replied quietly. "It wasn't as easy as she made it sound, mind. We used ta fight a lot. But you were just about the only person who was ever nice ta me without wanting something from me, or who didn't want me to be someone else."
Akane blushed at the complement and changed the topic. "We used to fight? Why?"
Ranma grimaced. "We got off ta a real bad start. You didn't know I was a guy at first, and, well, uh," Ranma floundered, despite her newfound determination. "and, well, uh, some embarrassing stuff happened. Too, the marriage thing was pushed on us both, and we took ta calling each other names and fighting, and stuff. I used ta call you tomboy, and uncute, and stuff, and you'd call me pervert, and jerk, and sometimes hit me, and well, uh, it wasn't good."
For a short while, a silence grew between the two teenagers. Ranma eventually broke it. "I always wanted to say I'm sorry, and never did, and then it was too late."
Ranma looked so forlorn that Akane couldn't help but to reach for one of her hands and squeeze it. "Um, I don't know what to think about your story, but, um, I guess I could see why I liked you." Akane flushed, dropped Ranma's hand, and turned and ran for the house.
Behind her, a suddenly stunned Ranma was left standing with one hand still in the air, poleaxed more thoroughly than any punch of Ryoga's. "Wow." was all she eventually said.
"Goodness, is Ranma alright? Perhaps I should go and check on her."
Nabiki turned from closing the window and regarded her older sister, still standing with an amazed look. "He's fine Kasumi," she replied, with a slight emphasis put on the gender of her reply. "I've seen him take lots worse in our last year of fighting."
"Oh. Well, if you're certain it's alright." Kasumi smiled and sat on Nabiki's bed. It might be a little early yet, but she felt it would be best to broach certain topics sooner rather than later. Whenever her sister wasn't talking to her, Kasumi had noticed a great emptiness and hate in Nabiki. And her eyes, her sister's gaze was outright frightening, almost the same as their new houseguest, Ranma's. Kasumi was frightened for her little sister; she would do what she could to help. "You must have lot's of stories to tell, younger sister. Or are you really my younger sister, now?"
"Hmm. Good question. I think so." Nabiki sat next to her sister and her face grew distant for a moment as she thought. "If I remember right, it was about a year and 9 months from now until we came back. That still leaves me a few months younger than you."
"It sounds exciting. And you haven't told your sister any of it yet." Kasumi giggled conspiratorially. Unable to help herself, Nabiki joined her. Finally, Kasumi became serious again and pointed at the ring on Nabiki's hand. "Most importantly, who is, or was, the lucky guy? Ranma?"
Nabiki twitched, then sighed. Of course her sister had noticed the ring, and probably overheard them speaking as well. In the old days, Nabiki would probably have brushed off her sister's query. Now, though, Kasumi was far too precious to her. Working the ring off her hand, she gave it to Kasumi to look at. "Yes, it was Ranma. Daddy and Mr. Saotome forced it on us the day after the massacre at Akane and Ranma's future wedding. Neither of us is really certain if it applies. It's hard to know if anything we did or promised then matters now." Nabiki paused for a moment, and her face twisted in anger. "It certainly looks like the promise of vengeance doesn't. I still don't trust those damn Amazons. They just better watch their steps."
"Nabiki, your language," Kasumi gently rebuked her sister, then continued, "You know that's not the real reason. The feud no longer holds because Elder Cologne apologized to Daddy and Auntie Nodoka, not because you, Ranma and Cologne came back to now. You need to try to let it go, sister, before it hurts you."
Kasumi sighed inside. When she looked at Nabiki's frightening hatred displayed in her sister's eyes, she saw that her words were having little effect. 'Perhaps it's better to divert her attention for now' she thought. Verbally, she continued, "Likewise, what's important between you and Ranma isn't what time you're in, but whether or not you made a vow."
Thankfully, the change in topic seemed to help. Nabiki face become slightly less hard and her eyes less empty as she turned her mind to other considerations. "I know, big sister, I know. But, don't you see, now Akane has a chance to be happy. Something Ranma and never were, not really. All we ever did was fight the Amazons and watch our families fall apart. There's no documents now to show we were ever married, and the only people who know are Ranma, me, probably Cologne, and now you." Nabiki paused for a moment to take a deep breath. "I owe her that chance, big sister. I did some things to ruin or delay their relationship in the future." Nabiki indicates the ring in Kasumi's hand. "I'm willing to give that up for her, even if Ranma and I did work pretty well together, I guess. Heh, who'd have thought a dumb jock would have had it in him?"
Kasumi shook her head. "Are you sure about this, Nabiki? It's not like you to walk away from a promise. Also, from what I've seen of the two of you today, I think you two may depend on each other more than you know or admit to yourselves. And what about Ranma, would he be happy with himself if he breaks his promises?"
"Kasumi ... " Nabiki chewed her lip for a moment as she tried to marshal her arguments. "Look, this is just too fast. To me, yesterday, Akane was dead, you were a paraplegic, and Ranma and I were fighting Cologne." Nabiki's clenched her fists in anger, and her eyes flashed. "And it's all set to happen again, don't you see? You know that all the other people who made Akane's life a living hell are still out there. I'm not going to let it all happen again, Kasumi. I'm not. I owe Akane too much."
"It's alright, Nabiki-chan, it's alright." Kasumi hugged her distressed sister. "I'm sorry. Of course, I won't tell anyone about this without your permission." Nabiki nodded jerkily and shuddered a bit, released her tension, and eventually settled down again.
After a few moments, a wicked gleam returned to Kasumi's eyes and she deftly offered a break in the tension. Handing back the ring, Kasumi put on her best innocent expression and asked, "But you still haven't told me any of the really important bits. Like, do I find a cute boyfriend in the next year?"
"Kasumi!"
Twilight slowly drifted over Nermia; the soft darkness spreading like a soft blanket over the harsh realities of day. In one particular yard, a pigtailed young man sat morosely perched on a large rock, slowly skipping stones across a koi pond, and watching as the stone raised ripples merged, bounced, and faded away. The metaphor seemed appropriate to Ranma, even if he wouldn't have used the word.
After a bath and change of clothes, Ranma had retired to the pond to try, again, to think things out. This thinking thing seemed to be something he was doing a lot of, lately.
He was glad, very very glad, that Akane and his mother were alive and Kasumi uninjured, but on the other hand, it seemed as if everything he'd done in the past year was worthless. Far from resolving his problems, this trip to the past seemed to have brought them all back. The Amazons were still here, with all their stupid laws. Even if Cologne did apologize and try to cure him (Stupid Pops), he still didn't trust 'em.
Even worse, now he felt trapped as badly as in the worst of the multiple fiancee situation. He still had very strong feelings for Akane. To himself at least, he'd even admit he loved her. However, he now had obligations to Nabiki, too. He couldn't just abandon Nabiki like they were never married, could he? And now Ucchan was alive again somewhere, too, and didn't he also have an obligation to her?
Aside from all this, all the crazies in his life were out there again, just waiting to start the entire mess all over again. Even if the Amazon bitches continued to play nice (like yeah right!), the two Kunos, Ryoga, Mousse, Happosai, Taro, Herb, and Kami knows who else were all out there, somewhere, just waiting to cross his path again. Even worse, just waiting to cause trouble for Akane.
Half consciously, he snarled and half curled his hands into fists. If he had anything to say about it, he wouldn't be putting up with shit from any of them. None of the bastards would hurt Akane again! He knew a good place to start, too: with the mob of assholes attacking Akane every day at school.
Well, if he was going to do this right, he had better find Nabiki. Ranma stood and turned around to go and find her only to come to a sudden stop, as Nabiki was already stepping off the porch on her way to Ranma. Unnoticed by either of them, the hard, empty expression on her face was a close match for his own.
"Ranma, we need to talk about school tomorrow."
Meeting her gaze, Ranma nodded.
Authors notes
According the the giant panda information at the largest pandas grow to be "about 250 pounds (115 kg), about the weight of a large adult human."
Clearly, Genma in his panda form is shown to be far larger than this. Besides, it's more dramatic. :-)
Authors notes
Thanks to all who reviewed! I received some very insightful comments, and some very nice ego boosting as well! Even though I did ask for feedback, the quality of feedback I've received leads me to believe that my writing must be ok. :-) Please keep the reviews coming!
Authors notes
Thank you all again for the reviews. Please keep 'em coming!
A resolution to at least one of the dilemmas facing our heroes is in sight, should they choose to accept it. What will honor demand?
Authors notes
One reviewer pointed out a continuity error on my part, when I called the curse water Cologne offered as a cure Spring of Drown Boy, instead of Man. All I can say is whoops. "Ignore the plot hole behind the curtain! I am the great author of, er." Okay, that didn't work for you? How about "Damn the plot holes! Full speed ahead! " Okay, okay, I'm sorry. No more stupid references. You get the basic idea, anyway.
Oh yea, I mentioned this in an email response to one comment, but it'd be useful to post here, as well. I have no intention of following out all the events in the Ranma universe with these 'new' characters.
This story isn't another version of 'how should Ranma have handled his life', it's about the conflicts and dilemmas of the characters as I've portrayed them. The conclusion of this story will be when the characters have reasonably resolved (or have hope of resolving) their conflicts and dilemmas.
Thanks for the comments, and please keep the ego stroking coming! "Feed me Seymore!" So I lied, I used another stupid reference.
Authors notes
Whoo hoo ! Another chapter finally done ! I had been forced by other circumstance to take a week or two break from writing. When I went back, I started by rereading my stories. Typically, my reaction was "who wrote this crap ? I actually published this ?"
Ergo, I decided to take my time on this chapter, to write slowly, and edit and reedit multiple times. Also, I asked someone to pre-read for me, and he kindly aquiesced (thanks Mark ! I owe you a beer !) Hopefully, the story is better for it.
Thanks for reading ! I hope you've enjoyed !
Authors notes
thanks again to the folks who were kind enough to pre-read this for me.
Please forgive the section titles of this last part. It turned out to be inappropriate, as I find myself taking the story in a direction I had not originally planned. I had intended to make the centerpiece of this section Ranma and Nabiki struggling to decide what honor required of them, thus 'Path of Honor'. Instead, because of how I see the characters development to this point, the story has turned another direction.
On the plus side, thanks to some comments I received (thanks Ukiechan!) I finally see a resolution to this thing, and it's not a horrible self-destructive one. On the minus side, there's still some amount of ickyness necessary to get there.